It is another four years before the next Winter Olympic Games but one of this edition's galleries allows us to relive the excitement and atmosphere of this year's event.
Freelance Latvian photographer Janis Pipars visited Turin in Italy to photograph some of the remarkable participants as they prepared for the games there.
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Janis Pipars
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Twenty-eight-year old Janis from Riga, a participant in World Press Photo's Baltic seminar program in 2001-2002 and a nominee for the Joop Swart Masterclass in 2005, started his career as a photo-reporter for the Latvian news agency AFI.
Among other publications in which his images have appeared in an eight-year career are The New York Times, Time and the US News and World Report. He also covered the presidential elections in Ukraine – otherwise known as the Orange Revolution – for World Picture News.
For his gallery, Janis spent two weeks at the games and was particularly proud to record the preparations of Aerodium, eleven fellow Latvians selected as some of the stars of the closing ceremony.
“They were skydivers who created a unique show. People around the world, and especially in Latvia, were astonished by their performance”, says Janis.
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Anastasia
Taylor-Lind
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Anastasia Taylor-Lind, a 25-year-old freelance photojournalist who originates from Devon in England, spent time for her gallery with female Kurdish rebels belonging to the PKK or Kurdish Workers Party in Northern Iraq.
A visiting tutor at the University of Wales Newport, Anastasia says she and
a female colleague, journalist Katie Scott, were given complete access to women
fighters as they prepared to cross the border to fight the Turkish army in their
quest for an independent Kurdish state.
Says Anastasia: "I stayed with the women for seven weeks - sleeping, eating
and living with them. I was drawn to the story because the women are so dedicated
that they are prepared to die for what they believe in. Growing up in a democracy,
this is something outside my experience. And I wanted to question my own government's
accusation that these women are terrorists. Mostly, I wanted to meet these women
who defied their society's expectations of their gender, rejected conventional
roles as women and chose a life that forbids marriage and children."
Anastasia, who worked on 35 mm film using natural light for her gallery, has won a number of awards including The Guardian Weekend Photography prize in 2006 and was highly commended in the Observer Hodge Award for Young Photojournalists 2004.
She was UK representative at the World Press Photo Asia-Europe Forum for Young
Photographers in Vietnam in 2004.
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is a saying which rings true in many parts of the world.
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Nelli
Shishmanyan
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Nelli Shishmanyan, a 23-year-old former choir-master turned photographer from
Yerevan in Armenia, adopted it as the theme for her gallery.
“Many times I have come across the interesting use of objects as they are adapted
for purposes other than those for which they were designed,” says Nelli, a a
former student of photojournalism at the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan.
Currently engaged at the instutute, Nelli used a Canon EOS 350D camera with
both natural and artificial light for her work.
“It is not only in Armenia where unusual objects are used for different jobs,” says Nelli, “but Armenians have creative minds and unrestrained imaginations. During shooting, I learnt a lot and had great pleasure”.
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Veronica Wijaya
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On May 27 2006 an earthquake caused death and destruction near Yogyakarta in Indonesia and photographer Veronica Wijaya was despatched by the organization for which she works, the UN agency UNHabitat, to record what happened next.
Her gallery contains images from that assignment.
Twenty-nine-year-old Veronica, who is based in Jakarta and took part in a photojournalism
course at the I See/Imaging Center developed with help of World Press Photo,
used a Canon 20D with an EFS 17-85mm lens and natural light for her work.
"My office is closely involved with post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction,” says Veronica. “The photo story was meant to capture the effects of the destruction and how people responded by building temporary shelter. The shoot took no more than five days”.
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